Pierre Dubois
Pierre Simon Dubois (April 8, 1920 - September 20, 2003) was a Belgian Army soldier and officer who served in World War II and the Korean War. Early life and family Dubois was born in the Belgian municipality of Montigny-le-Tilleul in Hainaut. He came from a lower-class Walloon family, and his father was a World War I veteran and a teacher in a Catholic school. In 1937, after working as a shoemaker's apprentice, Dubois passed his exams and was accepted into the Royal Military Academy in Brussels. In September 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland and Dubois was beginning his second year, he was graduated early and commissioned as a Lieutenant in the Belgian Army. Military service World War II Pierre Dubois joined the Belgian Army in December 1939 as a Lieutenant, and was assigned to command an infantry platoon in the 1st Battalion of the 2nd Grenadier Regiment, part of the 7th Infantry Division. The 7th Division at the time garrisoned Fort Eben-Emael on the Dutch-Belgian border. On May 10, 1940, Nazi Germany started its invasion of western Europe, beginning the Battle of Belgium. The same day, the Germans launched an airborne assault on the fortress. Lieutenant Dubois and his men struggled to hold the Germans on the Albert Canal, counterattacking wherever possible in the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael. After a day of hard fighting, the garrison surrendered, but Dubois was able to make his escape. Lieutenant Dubois joined up with the 1st Infantry Division, where he was placed in the 1st Battalion, 3rd Regiment of the Line. The Belgian soldiers fought a series of rearguard actions against the Germans as they retreated through western Belgium, offering heavy resistance around the city of Antwerp before retreating to the Ghent bridgehead as the Allied situation rapidly deteriorated. After holding their position here, the Belgians were forced to retreat over the Lys River by a German attack. In the Battle of the Lys, Lieutenant Dubois and his men held off the Germans for four days around Kortrijk before, on May 28, 1940, the Kingdom of Belgium surrendered to Nazi Germany. Dubois, however, refused to surrender, even as the 1st Division followed suit. Escaping the German lines, he made his way along the English Channel coast to the port of Dunkirk in France, where thousands of Allied troops waited to be evacuated. In June, he joined one of the last contingents of soldiers to be evacuated from the ever-shrinking beachhead. He sailed to England the same month, and then traveled from there to London, and then on to Tenby in Wales, where he joined a group of Belgian expats which included many former soldiers. The Belgians immediately began training for combat, expecting to form a battle-ready unit as soon as possible. The first of these formations was called the 1st Fusilier Battalion, and Lieutenant Dubois was one of its first members. The soldiers were trained and equipped by the British government for three years until January 1943, when the 1st Belgian Infantry Brigade was formed under British standards. Dubois, noticed by the British and the Belgians for his distinguished service record, was promoted to captain and placed in command of the brigade's 1st Motorised Company. In Britain, the training continued as the soldiers grew anxious to see action. In early 1944, the brigade took part in a series of landing exercises meant to prepare the men for D-Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy. The 1st Brigade did not take part in the initial invasion in June, but were held in reserve to be used in the liberation of the Low Countries. On July 30, 1944, Captain Dubois and his men landed in France, as the first Belgian troops to land on the continent. The brigade was placed under the command of the British 6th Airborne Division, and first went into action in August. Dubois took part in Operation Paddle, the clearing of the channel coast. The 1st Brigade took Merville-Franceville-Plage and drove the Germans from Varaville a few days later. They continued liberating French villages throughout August, eventually coming under the authority of the British 49th (West Riding) Infantry Division. Dubois and his men crossed the Seine River and helped support the Allied attack on Le Havre in Operation Astonia. Once the mission was complete, the 1st Brigade was transferred to a different section of the front to take part in the liberation of Belgium and the Netherlands. In early September, the brigade crossed the Belgian border and liberated Brussels along with British troops shortly after. From there, Captain Dubois and his men fought their way north and pushed the Germans out of Leopoldsburg on the Albert Canal. Once Belgium had been fully liberated, the 1st Brigade crossed over into the Netherlands as a supporting part of the British offensive in Operation Market Garden, where they guarded the British right flank. Later in the month they fought back strong German resistance over the Wessem Canal, with fighting continuing until November. Some days later, Captain Dubois and the rest of the brigade were pulled out of the line to refit and reorganize near Leuven. There, they would stay for the rest of the year and for most of the next. In April 1945, the brigade was back in action. Captain Dubois and his men traveled back to the Netherlands where they fought one final action against German troops. They crossed over into Germany the next month, just before the final German surrender of May 8, 1945. Occupation of Germany Captain Dubois and the 1st Brigade held their own sector of Allied-occupied Germany, where they stayed until the brigade was disbanded in December 1945. Dubois, however, continued to hold a job in the sector, his post alternating between Cologne and Aachen. After fulfilling occupation duties for four years, Dupont returned home to Belgium in 1949. Korean War In June 1950, North Korea invaded its southern neighbor. In response to the Communist aggression, a United Nations force led by the United States was assembled to deal with the threat and protect the sovereignty of South Korea. Belgium decided to send a contingent of its own, and in 1950 the new force was formed. Captain Dubois, then not on active duty, volunteered for service and was selected to lead a company of the Belgian Battalion. The battalion, which included a section from Luxembourg, trained at Leopoldsburg before sailing from Antwerp to Pusan in South Korea in January 1951. In South Korea, the battalion was organized as a part of the British 29th Independent Infantry Brigade. In April, the Belgians were sent to the front line along with the British troops to help repulse a Communist Chinese offensive. During the Battle of the Imjin River, Captain Dubois and his men held Hill 194 against a massive Chinese onslaught before withdrawing with the rest of the brigade, having helped with a significant Allied delaying action. After this hard-fought action, the battalion was placed in relieved by another Belgian formation, which Dubois joined. By late 1951, a series of attacks and counterattacks had solidified the line at the 38th Parallel and created a general stalemate between the UN and Communist forces. After taking part in the advance in Operation Commando, during which they were attached to the US 1st Cavalry Division, the Belgians arrived at an advanced position characterized by a hill known as "Broken Arrow". In the Battle of Haktang-ni, Dubois and the battalion repulsed several Chinese attacks over a period of four days in October. Afterwards, the Belgians retreated back to the UN line. In Operation Polecharge, an Allied counteroffensive, the battalion supported the attacks on the Chinese-held Hills 346 and 240 and took Hill 272 along with American forces. This attack succeeded in securing the UN line and eliminating the Chinese salient which threatened the South Korean capital of Seoul. For the next year of the stalemate, the Belgians simply held their positions. By this point, they were organized as a part of the US 3rd Infantry Division. During the year of 1952, not much happened at the Belgian position, as the Communist forces would rarely do more than patrol their sector of the line. Captain Dubois directed his men on counter-patrols and occasionally limited sorties against the enemy. The stalemate had sapped the initiative from either side, and few major battles were fought during this period. In early 1953, Captain Dubois and the Belgian Battalion moved into the Iron Triangle, a sector of the line with a heavy Communist presence. There, they dug in around the village of Chatkol and prepared to hold the line. In February, the Chinese attacked and the Battle of Chatkol began. The outnumbered Belgians fought on for as long as they were able, but eventually they were forced back from Outposts Alice and Carol in March and retreated to form a smaller defensive perimeter. Dubois led a counterattack which retook Outpost Carol the next day, and a few days later recaptured Outpost Alice. For over a month from March into April, the Belgians fought off near-constant Chinese assaults on their defenses. After an improbable stand against a numerically superior enemy force, Captain Dubois and the Belgian Battalion were relieved from the front lines. The battalion would not see further action in Korea. On July 27, 1953, the Korean Armistice Agreement signed at Panmunjom ended the fighting on the peninsula for all parties. Though hostilies had ceased, it was necessary for the UN contingent to keep a force on the border to prevent any kind of Communist attack. Dubois remained with his men at the 38th Parallel until December 1954, when he returned home to Belgium. By June 1955, the Belgian Battalion had left Korea entirely. Cold War and the end of service In May 1955, Dubois returned to Germany where he was promoted to Major and given a command stationed on the West-East German border. The Belgians' mission this time was to protect West Germany and the whole of western Europe from a Soviet and Warsaw Pact invasion, as was feared at the time. No attack came, and the Belgian forces' duties remained peaceful. In 1964, he returned home to Belgium. Major Pierre Simon Dubois retired from the Belgian Army on October 7, 1965. Personal life In 1956, Pierre maried Èlisabeth Marie Verhavert, and they lived in her home in Liége after he retired from the service. They had one child, Hervé Bernard, in 1968. For a short period in the 1970s, Dubois served as a consultant at the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History in Brussels. On September 20, 2003, Pierre Simon Dubois passed away in the family home in Liége. Views Dubois was a strong supporter of King Léopold III and admired his dedication to remain in Belgium instead of joining the government in exile. During the Royal Question of 1950, Dubois voted in favor of the king's return and argued that Léopold had not collaborated in any way with Hitler or the Nazis. He continued to support King Baudouin after his predecessor's abdication. Dubois also supported Belgium's entry into NATO as well as independence for the Congo (initially reluctantly, later less so as the end of colonialism in Africa became inevitable). He was also very Catholic, and supported the Catholic political faction in Belgium. Equipment During the Battle of Belgium, Dubois used the new Belgian Mauser M1935 bolt-action rifle with its M1924 bayonet, as well as a Browning GP 35 automatic pistol. In Britain, he was reequipped with a Lee Enfield No.4 Mk.I bolt-action rifle and its No.4 Mk.II bayonet, as well as the Mills No. 36M Mk.I fragmentation grenade, though he preferred to keep his old sidearm. In Korea, he used an American M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle and its M1 bayonet, along with the Mk.II fragmentation grenade. In Germany, Dubois was equipped with the new FN FAL rifle.Category:Soldiers in World War II Category:Soldiers in the Korean War Category:Belgian soldiers